Guest speaker Theresa Clementson

It was a great surprise to meet a publisher after just doing a pre-evaluation of her book.

So many questions ran through my head;

-What principles did she follow?

-Did it come from her as a teacher and a writer of from publishers?

-How did she come up with a particular lexis for certain level and lesson?

-Did she try out all the activities before including them in the course book?

-How does she start to write the unit?

-What does she start from?

-Why there weren’t as much rise of cultural awareness as in other course books?

Of course, you don’t become a material writer overnight. It requires years of experience and the best material writers are the practicing teachers as they don’t lose the touch with level, students’ needs, they are aware of what learners are interested in, what  they are into and what motivates them.

Material designing it’s very complicated process involving more than one person to write, limited time , budget, a  publishing company with it’s own restrictions and requirements, learning how to compromise or sometimes fight your corner.

When we asked Theresa which principles she followed when writing English Unlimited , the answer was: interesting. It is what we all try to do when supplementing or creating our own lessons, we try to make it interesting, appealing to our students, motivating , using different methods and technics to deliver the target topic, grammar and etc. I guess if to put all the main principles, in a nutshell, we come up with: interesting, it’s just a shorter way to describe all these principles.

When evaluating ‘English Unlimited’ I’ve noticed the lack of “UK centric things”. The idea was to write a global course book, something real, international, not dated, without using local celebrities’ names, correctly selected lexis, written for being used by adults.

Being an L2 learner myself, I remember how it was irrelevant to me talking about celebrities or shows I didn’t know but I felt more engaged in the activities based on educational topics.

Writing a global course book you have to be very selective when choosing a topic and it’s easier to write for adults as they have more general knowledge and experience. However, it’s

Theresa is not only a professional writer but also an experienced and practicing teacher. It is crucial for material designers to practice in order to not lose the touch with the level and students.

Theresa has also written a version of “English Unlimited” for Arab speaking countries. It is quite common that a lot of countries cannot use global coursebooks due to their religious beliefs and regulations and usually ends up using a local coursebook, which can be a great book but it might be a bit isolating and restricted.

Writing a global course book yet requires bearing in mind your learners, e.g writing a coursebook for Arab speaking countries or European countries(Theresa has mentioned an interesting  fact about keeping units short in a course book as Italian learners get upset if they don’t finish all the units),meeting their expectation and needs, and don’t forget about the publisher’s requirements.

Materials and digital technologies.

Technology has always been used in language classrooms , e.g language laboratory.

With the rapid development of technology, teachers are exposed to an enormous choice of digital resources. Some teachers feel overwhelmed and find it hard to keep up with and make a use out of it, some use it just to entertain learners and feel up the lessons and some make out the most of it, creating blending learning environment, using multimodality to achieve the best possible outcomes of using technology, use synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Digital media has become a part of our life, we use it to keep in touch with our friends and family, use it for business but it doesn’t necessarily mean that our learners interested in using technology if it doesn’t facilitate or aid the learning , or hasn’t got  any practical input.

Before creating, selecting or using digital technologies it’s important to think of pedagogical considerations:

– why do we have to use this material?

-how does it facilitate and supplement the curriculum?

-Is it engaging?

-What multimodality and learning time( synchronous/asynchronous) does it offer?

-Does it meet learners’ needs and expectations?

-Is it motivating?

If digital materials are designed using main principles for material designing and bearing pedagogical considerations in mind, they can tick off all the boxes for a successful language learning.

The chart below was proposed by Kervin, L and Derewianka,B (in Tomlinson 2011:329) on how our learners can benefit from using digital technologies for acquiring a language, and how different technologies can contribute to different kind of learning(synchronous and asynchronous).

Using videos in the classrooms can help learners not only improve their learning skills but also boost their vocabulary, help with speaking and writing skills.

One of my online students found listening quite challenging and demotivating. At our lessons, we started using different short videos with subtitles in order to eliminate the anxiety and negativity and it did work. I started to see the benefits of it and as it can be time-consuming to come up with personally designed material each time, I started to look for a digital program for Russian-speaking students offering to practice and improving their listening and vocabulary skills by watching videos, and came across :https://puzzle-english.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMOcpwAhTZk

It’s not the best program but it uses multimodality and my students find it quite useful, in particular, watching videos with double subtitles(English-Russian). It has got a virtual dictionary, which allows you to input new vocabulary from the video or an exercise and it can be used on your phone(you have to download an App created by this company) in a way of different games using that vocabulary. It not only contributes to their learning but also gives them a flexibility as both these programs can be used on mobile phones.

There are also different kind of programs helping with improving pronunciation, e.g GarageBand and most fascinating : interacting with non-human partners, for example, such programs as Jabberwacky. It allows a student to have an interactive learning by chatting on different topics ,have a transcript of their previous conversation, enabling  them to have a track of their learning, helping with planning and etc.

Correctly designed digital technology offers four different learning environments( written/oral synchronous and asynchronous learning)multimodality, which can not only help with acquiring the language but also speed it up.

Bibliography:

Hazel, L. W. C. (2015) Materials design and pedagogy for technology-enhanced language learning.

International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT) 5 (1): pp. 22-34. doi: 10.4018/IJCALLT.2015010102.

Kervin, L. & Derewianka, B. (2011) New technologies to support language learning. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kiddle, T. (2013) Developing digital language learning materials. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd ed) London: Bloomsbury.

Task design and evaluation.
It is always a challenge to choose appropriate activities for learners, as they are never the same and global course books can’t cater for every learner’s needs, due to their age, level, background, general knowledge, interests, and motivation. All these factors create the need for writing our own materials but in order to be able to do so, it’s very crucial to understand the principles, frameworks, and evaluation of materials.
In the last two decades, there has been done a lot of input and research on evaluation. There are many definitions describing term evaluation but one of the most appropriate definitions was proposed by Richards (1985:98), who defines it as ‘the systematic gathering of information for the purpose of making decisions’. It can be applied to such component of language curriculum as learners’ and teachers’ needs analysis, objectives, evaluating materials before using them, testing, teaching them.
There are different types of evaluation:
-Pre-use evaluation
-whilst-use valuation
-post-used evaluation
-Macro and micro evaluation proposed by Ellis,R(1998).
A macro-evaluation is based on analyzing and collecting information relating to administrative and curriculum program, teaching materials, it helps to identify if objectives of a program have been met, and which aspects can be improved.
A micro-evaluation, it’s based on analyzing the effectiveness and efficiency of the tasks, do the tasks meet learners needs, the level of participation and etc.
In order to meet the requirements of administrative and curriculum program, to keep our learners engaged and motivated, to ensure the best learning outcomes, it’s also crucial to be aware of different types of activities, exercises, and tasks.
There are many definitions of language-learning tasks, but the most suitable definition was proposed by Richards, P and Webber (1985:289), they describe task as…’an activity or action which is carried out as a result of processing or understanding language (i.e. as a response). For example, drawing a map while listening to a tape, listening to an instruction and performing a command, may be referred to as tasks. Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task.”
Task-based language learning gives more freedom to learners to choose the language they use, allows them to acquire knowledge and skills in accordance with their own order of acquisition.
Successful task performance depends on task complexity(attention, memory), task difficulty (learner factors: language aptitude, confidence, motivation, anxiety, intelligence), and task conditions(participation variability and participant variability). Teachers can manipulate these variabilities focusing on fluency or accuracy.

This summer I have used few  task-based learning activities. Here is the example of two of them.

One of them was an origami fortune teller  I used  it to supplement  the grammar point on revising the future forms. As I have already mentioned earlier my learners’ wish was to revise the grammar but do it in a communicative way, so I decided to come up with something allowing them to practice the language and make it fun and be more learner-centered. I  divided the class into four groups, with one student in each group who knew how to make the origami fortune teller. Those students had to give instructions to the rest of the class and explain the rules of the game. I monitored the task and used error correction when needed. I wasn’t very sure if the learner would like the task and the game but it was a great fun and the learners got involved with the task, helping their leaders to come up with the right word or an instruction when they struggled.  As a result, the whole class was involved in the task, enjoyed practicing the grammar point,they had a sense of ownership by making it themselves and deciding what they would include in it(they had to come up with their own ideas using three future forms: will, going to and present continuous for future).

The second task-based learning I would like to share in this post is making an air-conditioner. We were revising forms of ‘made from, made of, made out of and made with. During this presentation, I showed to my learners a video of a Bangladeshi engineer who made an air-conditioner out of plastic bottles.

It was boiling hot in the classroom the learners got very excited about making our own air-conditioner that I decided to use this opportunity as a task-based learning and the students seemed very motivated.

For the next lesson, I provided the learners with the  plastic bottles, which I cut in half prior the lesson,(I had to do it by myself  for the health and safety reason). I divided the class into three groups and the learners had to watch the video one more time and used it as an instruction to make their own air conditioner.During this task, learners had to write down any new lexis they didn’t know and later on that week we used in in our vocabulary revision game. The students were very excited about the task practicing English,  had a freedom to choose the language and did enjoy it.

The task was a great success. The air-conditioner kept as cool for the whole week and it sparked a lot of interest among the rest of the students at the school.

If to give an evaluation to these tasks, I think, I’ve achieved the goals I set:

-give more freedom for using the language(the students used their own ideas, they decided what to include into their fortune tellers, they coped very well with the giving instruction and  did it naturally, authentically, as they usually do when socializing in real life.

-being learner-centered(I’ve listened to their need, made it fun and communicative and was innovative and creative, I was around but not involved in it)

-the learners were tired of a traditional classroom teaching( I brought in an element of creativity, fun, they were in charge of the tasks, I just monitored it and as a result the learners could physically see their work, they had a sense of ownership, it didn’t feel like learning and more importantly, it boosted the motivation.
Another way of boosting students’ motivation is using authentic materials. It gives learners the feeling that they learn ‘real’ language. The issue of using an authentic material, without simplifying or editing it, is that learners might find it too hard to work with, especially at lower levels. Nowadays, with the help of technology, it’s easier to use an authentic material with a lower level students. There are so many videos, which can be created in quite productive activity allowing student gaining vocabulary and improving their listening skills.

Bibliography:
Richards, J. C., J. Platt, and H. Weber (1985). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Longman.
Vasiljevic, Z. (2011) The predictive evaluation of language learning tasks. English Language Teaching 4 (1):
Maley, A. (2011) Squaring the circle – reconciling materials as a constraint with materials as empowerment. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guariento, W. & Morley, J. (2001) Text and Task Authenticity in the EFL Classroom. ELT Journal 55 (4): doi: 10.1093/elt/55.4.347.
Nitta, R. & Gardner, S. (2005) Consciousness-raising and practice in ELT coursebooks. ELT J 59 (1):
Ellis, R. (2011) Macro- and micro-evaluation of task-based teaching. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Designing a worksheet

The reasons for designing materials can go on and on. It can be done  for supplementation, the course book doesn’t satisfy learners or personal needs, there is no course book or using the same materials or worksheets for each group of learners, even if they are the same age and level, at least without adapting it, simply doesn’t work because  we have to work with individuals, with their own learning styles, needs, preferences, schemata, learning aptitudes and  different cultural background.

Generally, I work with adults but time to time have to deal with young learners too. Frankly speaking, it’s easier to come up with some ideas for adults, as it’s easier to activate schemata in adults due to better understanding and general knowledge, they have a longer attention span, better aware of different cultures, countries, traditions.

It always easier and there is more chance to succeed in producing something when following a procedure, which also can help to identify, improve errors, analyze the product.

How to start designing a worksheet?

What are principles and frameworks to follow?

‘Need’ has always been an engine for action and interest drives the motivation.

So materials have to be interesting and have to meet learners, teachers, and institutional needs.

There are many varies steps in the process of material designing. It’s best to start with the objectives, the reason why you are doing it. The principle is like in business: you listen to your clients’ needs, understand what they want and need and try to deliver it by following the regulations (in this scenario institution, culture, age, level and etc. ).

Jolly,D. and Bolitho, R in Tomlinson(2011:113), propose the following framework:

 Identification of needs for materials

 Exploration of needs

 Contextual realization of materials

 Pedagogical realization of materials

 Production of materials

 Student use of materials

 Evaluation of materials against agreed objectives

Littlejohn, A in Tomlinson(2011:183)

Design of materials

1. Aims
2. Principle of selection
3. Principles of sequencing
4. Subject matter and focusing on subject matter
5. Types of teaching(what they require the learner to do and his knowledge, abilities, skills)
6. Participation
7. Learner roles
8. Teacher roles
9. Role of the materials as a whole

As I am teaching both online and in the physical classroom, it’s crucial to bear in mind the publication and design (Littlejohn, A. Tomlinson 2013:183) do the materials appear on paper or electronically , will be I able to use paper version for my online lessons and be aware of durability of worksheets when designing. I had some mishaps using Bubllr, when after spending hours looking for the right images the half of the worksheet disappears, or youtube videos I used on  TedEd aren’t available anymore due to publications rights and so on. It’s important to invest your time in something, which is easily adapted, durable and have some templates handy.

Usually, when designing we are required to follow the certain syllabus and as available course books aren’t often enough or lacking in motivation, we have to come up with our own worksheets to achieve the lesson’s goals and objectives and met the learners’ needs.

Worksheet adject  1WorksheetWorksheet adj. 2 adj 5    Worksheet 4

Here is an example of worksheets I had to design for A1-2 mixed ability adult group. The institution I taught this group makes sure that there are students from a different cultural background in each group. The aim of the lesson was Degrees of comparisons and as there were was a big level gap, I’ve decided to break the lesson into few parts and tried to cover all aspects of degree of comparison, which served as a revision and filled in the gaps for students with higher level and wasn’t  very challenging and  was interesting for the rest of the class. As I have already mentioned that students were from different cultural background and decided to use the capitals of their cities in order to make it more personal, interesting, promote discussion and practice the form. I’ve decided to stick to ‘true/false’, ‘gap fill’ and ‘matching exercises to make it as simple as I could. I had to find some facts about the cities and use them in the exercises, which worked very well as students shared their experience and knowledge while practicing the form. I tried to make exercises coherent, interesting, students centered and educational. The students responded really well to the worksheets, they used their mobile devices to look up for information. Making it more personal helped the students to acquire and practice the form.

Task design and evaluation for A2 mixed ability class.

I have covered this class few times and have noticed that materials provided by a school were either too simple for some students or too difficult and demotivating for others. The course book was too simple, whether other supplementary materials such as video was quite challenging.
I’ve developed my own list of principles when designing worksheets:
1. Materials should be interesting.
2. Materials should promote students autonomy.
3. Materials should be educational.
4. Materials should be motivating and engaging, both for learners and teachers
5. Materials should be easy to adapt or supplement.
6. Materials should be practical.
7. Materials should be learner centered.
8. Materials should be presentable, cultural and politically sensitive and easy to work with( allowing enough room for students to takes notes, fill in the gaps and etc.)
The grammar point for that lesson was ‘Degrees of comparison of adjectives’. I’ve decided to focus on comparison degree first , basing the topic on students’ cities.

Worksheet adject 1
Students found the activity quite engaging, they looked up for some new adjectives describing their capitals and compared them.
The second worksheet allowed ‘stronger students’ to work out/brush up rules of comparisons with ‘weaker students’, it did boost pair work and students successfully acquired the rules.

Worksheet adj. 2,   A1-3 Observation 3 a,  Work sheet 3adj,    Worksheet 4,   Worksheet adj 5
The next worksheet was based on controlled practicing, testing students general knowledge. It did sparkle the interest and students seemed very engaging, as they were divided into 2 groups. Group A had answers for group B and group B had the answer for group A. This task allowed learners not only practicing the language but also gave a possibility for peer correction and revising the form, as students had the answers and could point out at partners mistake.
The last worksheet was based on mingle activity and free practice. I’ve decided to play safe with that group and used tasks which students were familiar with and it felt comfortable working with.

It’s very important to choose the right types of activities, exercises, and tasks when designing worksheets bearing in mind your learners, their interest, abilities, habits if they like challenges, how do they interact with each other during the lesson, their needs.

Bibliography

Jolly, D. & Bolitho, R. (2011) A framework for materials writing. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed) Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd edn) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Littlejohn, A. (2011) The analysis of language teaching materials: inside the Trojan Horse. In:Tomlinson, B. (ed). Materials Development in Language Teaching. (2nd ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McDonough, J., et al. (2013) Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s Guide. (3nd edn) Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hedge, T. (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McGrath, I. (2002) Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (Chapter 5: Supplementation: designing worksheets.)

Using videos in the L2 classrooms has been around since it became available and affordable.
At the beginning of my career back to 2003 we didn’t have Wi-Fi, computers and laptops weren’t so affordable and students didn’t have smartphones. The only option to use videos in the classroom was by watching DVDs. We used to choose an extract from famous movies or series mainly for listening, to let our students get used to L2 and boost their vocabulary. I remember myself and my husband, who is an L2 learner too, watching news and films with the subtitles on. It did help us to get used to the L2 speech, gave better comprehension of what we watched and helped to gain and expand our vocabulary.
Nowadays, everybody is speaking about multimodality in L2,but it always has been around, one way or other teachers try to use all facilities available in order to facilitate the learning process.
Using videos in the classroom can improve not only listening skills and vocabulary but also gives an opportunity for learners to practice their speaking and writing skills, depending on what and how this video is used.
Sydorenko, T. (2012:50) writes about different approach of using videos in the classroom with different outcomes. After completing an experiment, she came up to the conclusion that using captured videos facilitates gaining vocabulary and watching videos using only images and audio without caption helps to improve speaking skills.
With the years passing by technology has made using videos in the classroom way easier and gives more room for teachers’ creativity; what they want to use it for and how. The use of multimedia gives an opportunity to use authentic materials, to expose learners to the target culture and motivates them.
In modern classrooms, teachers try to use every opportunity of using technology to make the use of videos as much beneficial for the learners as possible. It can be used for video-based storytelling, photo stories, presentations, students can create their own video, which can be a good opportunity for task-based learning, Godwin-Jones, R. (2012:1).
Using embedded video allows teachers use a multimodal approach, it gives an opportunity for pedagogical realization of video by using subtitles, muting the video, splitting the video, hiding it and etc.
The video is becoming the primary mode of communication around the world, especially it’s popular among young people and cannot be underestimated by teachers (Goldstein and Driver2015:5). It enables teachers to relate to their students’ interests , meet their expectations and it can have a positive impact on motivation.(Keddie 2014:74). Learners are so used to screen based learning and it aids students in acquiring a second language. They learn a lot by watching YouTube videos, films, playing computer games. Psychologically video has always had an element of interlacement in it , therefore , it’s more motivating for learners and it’s engaging.
How do I use videos in my classroom?
1. Dubbing
Dubbing gives a possibility to isolate video from the sound(Keddie 2014:78). Recently I’ve used a video from’ Big Train BBC comedy’: ‘ Do you speak English?’

It was a great opportunity to practice topic on ‘giving and asking for directions’. Students watched the mute version of the video and after in groups of three they had to produce their own version of the dialogue. It was great fun, students centered, gave a great opportunity to practice and correct the language and students had a good laugh after watching the original version of the video. If I had had an opportunity and it had been a multilingual, not monolingual class( I had a group of German teenagers), it would have been nice to give it to students as a task-based homework, so they could have actually recorded themselves speaking and edit the video.
2. Using videos for teaching/revising/practicing grammar and vocabulary
There are so many movies which can be used for revising, practicing or teaching grammar. My last video on teaching Past Perfect was from ‘Big Train BBC comedy’: A postman’s revenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndsDVMkbzX8

 
Students had to watch the video and come up with their own version to justify postman’s behavior using Past Perfect.

3. Predictions
Another way of promoting speaking is using split videos or video telling ,Keddie(2014:112), before showing the whole movie, or using only images or movie trailers. I’ve used this animation movie: ‘The Gift’

for my online student to practice adjectives, phrasal verbs, and future forms. The student watched the movie trailer and had to come up with her story, guessing what the gift was about, telling her own version. The second part was given for homework as it’s a seven minutes long video and the student had to retell the story using phrasal verbs and adjectives we had recently covered.
4. Video production
It was another online lesson with a university student studying hospitality and hotel management. It was an A2 level student who had to prepare a hotel checking-in procedure for her university assessment. I’ve designed my own worksheets based on an authentic video about hotel checking-in procedure. Student acquired the necessary vocabulary and drilled the procedure. However, it would have been great if we had an opportunity to role play the checking in procedure with her group-mates , make a video and then feedback on it. As it’s crucial to make learning more effective, and students have to articulate their knowledge and make it visible to others, Papert and Hare l(1991 in Walker and White 2013:89).

Using videos in the modern classroom is unavoidable, it promotes students’ motivation, helps improving listening, speaking, writing skills and particularly can be helpful to facilitate listening for lower level students(Join Adrian Doff, webinar: ‘Keeping it simple: Making learning manageable at lower levels.’)

Bibliography:
Goldstein,B, and Driver,P.(2014)Language learning with Digital Video. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Keddie,J.(2010) Video for the English Classroom. Teaching English. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/video-english-classroom
Keddie, J.(2010) Brining online video into the classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mishan,F.(2005). Designing authenticity into language learning material. Intellect Books.
Godwin-Jones, R. (2012) Emerging Technologies – Digital Video Revisited: Storytelling, Conferencing, Remixing. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2012/emerging.pdf.
Stempleski, S. (2002) Video on the ELT classroom: The role of the teacher. In: Richards, J.C. & Renandya, W.A. (ed). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sydorenko, T. (2012) Modality of input and vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning & Technology 14 (2): http://llt.msu.edu/vol14num2/sydorenko.pdf

Visuals and text
People have been using visuals as a communicating tool since Stone age. The power of image has an incredible physiological impact on people. It is used for political, religious, commercial, educational, entertaining purposes. It’s a whole science of using colours, charts, maps, graphs in order to deliver a message.
We are a screen based generation and it has changed the way we think ,accept and digest the information is different from the way our parents used to or our children will.
Years ago teaching material was mainly paper based but now we are ‘blessed’ with technology, which opens up great opportunities to have an instant access to mix semiotic resources.
New technology has introduced the new way of multimodal communication . People can stay physically connected almost anywhere: at work, shops, school and etc. It also has given a quick and easy access to a teacher to use different programs to create images for educational purposes. There are plenty of free programs which can help create visual materials: piktochart, Bubblr for comic strips, storytelling, creating dialogues, Flickr and etc.
It is hard to imagine any educational process without using images, especially in L2 context . With a new technology entering our classrooms , it has become easier for teachers to present material in more vibrant and diverse way. We can google an image if struggling to explain the meaning of the word, especially to low-level students, we use them for activating schemata, eliciting information, they gives us opportunity to cater for our learners needs and learning styles: explaining tense aspects using tense timelines or images, it gives us an opportunity being more creative, use our materials not only for teaching a language, but also make them educational, interesting.

I really like using cartoons from English with Laughter. This book has great images, which I use as a warmer, a lead in or for eliciting and practising the form.

jokes-p-36

jokes-english

jokes-33

Images can also facilitate  introducing a new vocabulary or used as an aid when students struggle to understand the form or how it’s used in the language . Here is one of the examples for practising and comparing Present Perfect and Perfect Continues forms.

Saying all above, we are back to square one, when trying to use visuals in paper-based materials. Especially when writing a coursebook. All tonnes of images and programs suddenly become restricted due to publishing rights and regulations, using cartoons becomes unaffordable as usually big publishers try to cut down on a cost of material designing. As a result, images used in coursebook don’t often meet their purposes: facilitating learning, promoting language, helping build an association with vocabulary or grammar point and quite often used as decoration or a gap filler(the main function of visuals in coursebooks is purely decorative (Hill 2013: 161), and when images are actually exploited, they are generally used for low-level language activities (p. 162).

After looking through ‘Cutting Edge’ upper intermediate Unit 3, I found only 20%  of images help a learner to activate schemata or help understanding grammar.

The activity of using pictures on p. 32-33  are very unclear, it’s had to come up with a story by looking at those pictures as they don’t tell much and they took two pages.
It’s very easy to criticise somebody’s work but you do fill how hard and time-consuming it can be when you want to use an image not for decorating but for being used in an activity. It’s not very hard to use images for matching written text or vocabulary with a picture, giving a physical description, spotting differences and so on. There are so many moments when I wish I could draw when explaining grammar points as not all students like timelines and benefit from visualising the situation, for story telling or when I need a particular facial expression or a situation. Images can make the process of learning easy, exciting, educational, engaging when correctly selected.

Also, after our discussions at our seminars, I started to think how fully exploited the emotional aspect of visuals,“visual materials have an emotional impact”. As Keddie (2009: 5) . Images have a strong emotional impact on us, they provoke thinking, curiosity, bring back memories and remind us of the experiences we’ve had.

The beginning of this summer was rather wet, and usually, the learners, who come to England have had a flavour of English weather and when I showed this image as a warmer for the lesson, we were covering ‘The weather’ topic, it literally spoke for itself. It helped with eliciting vocabulary, talking about the weather in England, the learners compared it to the weather in their countries, even took an image of this picture and posted it on a Facebook. 

The other time, I tried to use controversial images. We were working on the topic ‘Inventions’ and I decided to speak about chindogu inventions, which are silly and funny.

First, students had to come up with the list of 10 inventions, which have changed our lives.

Then, the learners had to compare their answers and talk about which inventions are positive and negative.

For the next stage, I gave out different images of chindogu inventions and the students had to discuss what are they for and how useful they are. These images sparked a lot of interest and facilitate the discussion and gave an opportunity to revise the previous vocabulary we had learnt( ridiculous, hilarious and etc.).

After that, the learners were giving a cutout lists with the description matching those images.

At the final stage, learners came up with a wish to draw their own inventions;

In the examples above, I used the pictures to “talk about” them rather than “talk with” them. I came across these concepts while reading Corder (1966: 35, cited in Hill 2013: 165). When students talk about the picture, they only describe what they  see. However, when ‘talking with the picture’, learners use the image as a springboard to speak about personal experiences or about things that they think or deduce. An example of this difference can be found in Keddie’s activity “What were you doing?” (2009: 71).

Here is one more example of an activity using visuals is ‘Roads’, proposed by  Hill (1990: 34, cited in Hill 2013: 162), in which images are simply used as empty canvasses for students to paint with their imagination.

I used this activity as a pre-last stage for learning phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are easy to forget or confuse, so I decided to add an emotional factor to it. The learners had to draw the images and as a final stage, we played a game: ‘Slap the desk'(it’s an active , dynamic game and work brilliantly for acquiring or brushing up a new vocabulary) using their images. The learners loved the game and the idea making them pictures those phrasal verbs helped them remembering them and also we used those images time to time as a revision or as a break.

There is one more activity I used, inspired by an example of  Keddie’s activity “What were you doing?” (2009: 71).

wonders_of_the_world

Students were asked to identify those places, we spoke if they would like to visit them and why, the students who have been to those places shared their experience and the emotions, we talked about the legends and myths behind those images.

Bibliography

Walker, A. & White, G. (2013) Technology Enhanced Language Learning: Connecting theory and practice. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

Hill, D. A. (2013) The visual element in EFL coursebooks. In: Tomlinson, B. (ed)Developing Materials for Language Teaching. (2nd ed) London: Bloomsbury. pp. 157-166.

Keddie, J. (2009) Images. Oxford: Oxford University.

Hill, D. A. (1990) Visual Impact. Harlow: Longman.